Old Soldiers Never Die
by Me
Summary: Snoopy remembers fallen heroes, & reminisces about the heroics of one Captain Farley in particular


A/N: My former dog passed away last summer in 2003 while at my parents' while I was on vacation. I had this idea of how Snoopy might handle something like that w/another dog, especially w/the malaprop my mom made that I just had to have Sally make in the story, about the dog dying & they had to get him to the vet.  
  
I couldn't think of how to make it a complete story though, till I had the idea that perhaps Snoopy would have heard of a really heroic adventure story from the men in the trenches. You may have heard it, too, but not in this form :-)  
  
OLD SOLDIERS NEVER DIE  
  
"I'll get the nurse," Snoopy shouted as he raced into the tiny hospital building, frantically trying to help save the fellow airman's life.  
  
"What is it?" Sally asked as she saw Snoopy at the door. Though in her mind he was normally clad, he still held a look of concern that made her run out to the doghouse; which to him was the main compound of a MASH unit. Sally hoped her brother would be home soon. They were supposed to watch a friend's dog, Spot, while that family was on vacation for a couple weeks. And, it seemed like Spot and Snoopy had been flying combat missions  
  
Snoopy looked at Sally, and observed an airman who had just been brought in. He spoke while still in his fighter gear. "It's my buddy, Spot. He's getting weaker. He just had another spell where he started breathing really fast. I think maybe they didn't get all of the flak out of him at the medivac unit at the front."  
  
"Oh, no. What happened, Snoopy?" Sally took Spot into her arms. "Oh, poor doggie. Mom?" she called. When Mrs. Brown ran outside to check, Sally said, "I think we'd better call the vet. Spot looks really tired and weak."  
  
Sally was told to call while Mrs. Brown carried Spot inside. Snoopy followed.  
  
"Yes, Sir, he won't eat anything now," Sally said after a minute of retrieving the doctor on the phone and explaining the situation. "Chicken soup? Yes, Sir. We'll try that, and get back to you." She hung up, and told her mom what the doctor said.  
  
When Charlie Brown arrived home from playing baseball with some friends, Spot jogged to meet him at the door. "We fed him chicken soup, and he perked right up," Sally explained after telling him what had happened.  
  
"Nice job, Sally. You do good work," her brother complimented her.  
  
Snoopy nodded. "She's a good nurse. One of these days, she might make a career out of it. Hopefully in a regular hospital, though."  
  
Spot looked at him with tired eyes. "That was good soup. Just like Mom used to make," he said tiredly.  
  
Snoopy smiled at Spot. "I know. I'm just glad we got everyone out of there. Including you."  
  
"Same here. We completed our mission," Spot murmurred as he rested in Charlie Brown's la and began to breathe heavily again. "We got them all out."  
  
Snoopy was aghast. There was the labored breathing again. "No! Spot!"  
  
"Tell my family...I love them. I'm...going home..."  
  
"Spot! No! We can get you help," Snoopy howled as Charlie Brown held the dog and Sally called the vet.  
  
Charlie Brown was too choked up to speak. Mrs. Brown wasn't sure what to say as she looked at them.  
  
Finally, after a moment, Sally hung up the phone as Linus came in the back door. "We don't have time to talk now, Linus. Shermy's dog just died, and we have to get him to the vet!"  
  
Linus looked puzzled as Saly realized with she'd just said. Mrs. Brown simply nodded her head slowly as Sally began to sniffle. "It's too late, isn't it?" the girl asked.  
  
The family embraced. Linus joined them as they wept for a moment.  
  
"Think how I feel. I was supposed to watch his dog," Charlie Brown said.  
  
"Sally, Charles, you both did everything you could. You kept him comfortable in his last days, you loved him, you treated him like they would have. That's what matters," Mrs. Brown assured them.  
  
Sally thanked her mom, then looked down at Spot. "Maybe we should call the vet back."  
  
"Yeah. We should." Inside, Mrs. Brown wanted to ask the vet what he thought had happened; though she knew her children couldn't have done anything else, she needed to hear that herself.  
  
As it turned out, the vet said that a tumor on the liver or spleen could have taken Spot that fast. Because of a couple other visible signs, it was determined that that was what had happened; and that perhaps Spot had started to get sick as early as the previous week, though Shermy and his family likely thought it was just the dog sensing they would be leaving and then missing them.  
  
Snoopy walked out into Shermy's family's back yard. He carted a bugle as the families stood around a hole, a hole dug right near a butterfly bush. Slowly, he raised the bugle to his lips, and played a solemn round of "taps."  
"Most dogs just howl at the moon," Charlie Brown muttered.  
  
Snoopy met the field nurse - Sally - after the funeral. "Thanks for all your help, Miss. You and your partner, the doctor, really helped my friend a lot in his last hours." He wandered miserably into a French cafe, where Marcie sat next to him. The rest of the family and freinds gathered at the Brown household while Marcie and Snoopy sat outside near Snoopy's doghouse.  
  
In the cafe in Snoopy's mind, he commiserated with a black-haired French girl with glasses and quaffed a root beer. "That field nurse had to run off to help another patient. Casualty rates would be so much lower if we had a hundred like her," Snoopy declared.  
  
"I'm sure she's helped many people like Spot. It must be hard to lose a friend."  
  
"At least he went out fighting. Of course, his death wasn't the most heroic I've seen."  
  
"Who was the most heroic?" Marcie wanted to know.  
  
Snoopy stared into his root beer and spoke solemnly. "There was this one fellow, fought down in the trenches. Well, one day..."  
  
Colonel Spike looked at Snoopy as they sat in a French cafe. "Think there might be some gas coming. It's just been too quiet."  
  
"I know what you mean," Snoopy remarked. "Hard to believe anything could live out in that no-man's land."  
  
"Yeah. Some of my men marched through here on patrol today, and it looks like all the people just left with only the clothes on their backs. And, I don't blame them one bit."  
  
Snoopy looked at his watch. "Well, I guess I've got to fly. Be careful; that gas is nasty stuff."  
  
"Tell me about it."  
  
Snoopy flew his Sopwith Camel up to a height where he could avoid the deadly poison, while the colonel and his troops surveyed the landscape - it looked like a desert, but with mud for sand. The air was dry as parchment now, though.  
  
Suddenly, the distant rumbling of German artillery caused their ears to perk up. Snoopy zoomed over to observe, trying in vain to shoot at anything, as he could tell this was the big one, the kind of attack everyone feared. Soldiers and residents alike.  
  
Suddenly, out of nowhere, the Red Baron zoomed in on him. He dodged and weaved, but the took several hits, so he quickly sped back to a safe landing place. His plane would fly no more that day.  
  
"Curse you, Red Baron," he scowled at the sky before making his way back to an unfamiliar, yet thankfully Allied, batllion.  
  
"Snoopy's the name," he said to the post guard. They exchanged salutes. "Had to ditch my plane; was hoping you could fix me a nice meal while I figure out where I am."  
  
"Sure. I'll get the post commander; we've still got a few men out on patrol, when they come back we'll have one of them take you home. Been lots of rain lately."  
  
"Yeah, mud broke my fall a bit where I landed. Cursed Red Baron."  
  
"We'll get him one day, Snoopy. Maybe you'll be the one." Snoopy noticed that the man seemed to hold some glimmer of hipe. Yes, he surmised, it might be possible. But, when you just had a big hunk of metal come down practically on top of you, 'someday' just seemed way too far away.  
  
However, as he was thinking that, a truck came zooming in with tires screetching like a thousand banshees, now that the vehicle was in a dry area. Snoopy instinctively ran outside to see what was the matter.  
  
He deduced the guard and driver were of the same rank, as they were on a first name basis. "Ed, what is it?" The man struggled with his gas mask as he tried to remove it - he hadn't even taken the time to do that before bolting back to the base. "Ed, where's the patrol you were with? Was there an ambush?" A major ran out to check, too.  
  
"No...get in, all of you." The one named Ed motioned them in, and Snoopy and the major jumped into the back seat while Ed's buddy got into the front.  
  
"Do we need our masks?"  
  
"I don't know, buddy," Ed said to Snoopy. Forgetting his gas mask was partly loose, Ed drove toward the front. The guard put it in place as they sped onward. "It's Farley."  
  
"What's Farley, how...?"  
  
"It was an ambush, all right. But Farley, he sees this little girl, her family must have thought she was with them, and she was hiding or something. Little French girl wandering near where they were coming,a nd he was trying to save her as the enemy advanced." The major gave an exclamation of shock and fear.  
  
"We can't just drive into an area aurrounded by enemy infantry," Snoopy exclaimed.  
  
"No, but we're gonna do it, anyway," the major decalred, ordering Ed to drive faster.  
Snoopy's mouth flew open as he witnessed the carnage on the battlefield. It looked like nobody had survived - how could they? Between the gas on both sides, and the artillery...  
  
The major, the guard, and Ed all ran toward the grizzled old veteran; Snoopy recognized him from stories he'd heard of a man who'd ridden with Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders. Yep, that was the veteran of San Juan Hill, all right. He approached cautiously as the old, fallen soldier lay stricken ont he battlefield, gaspoing for breath and trying to explain how after his entire group had been knocked out, he managed to...to...  
  
"Dang, he wiped out nearly the whole German Army," the major shouted.  
  
"Where's his gas mask, though. He's the only one without..." Snoopy stopped short as he observed the little girl, now cradled int he major's arms. And then, he lost it. He'd seen massive amounts of bloodshed even int he short amounts of tiem he noticed what went on in the trenches. But, nothing could have prepared him to see that little girl - with the gas mask that was given to her. A soldier had made the ultimate sacrifice, for the life of one person.  
  
"It was the most beautiful scene," Snoopy explained, back int he present. "Even before the Germans got there, he took his gas mask and gave it to that little girl. He made sure everything was snug, and only then did he worry about the advancing army. Most of his men were out of position by that time, but he fought off three dozen Germans by hismelf, before we got there.  
  
"I was there when President Wilson presented Farley's widow with his Medal of Honor. One man fighting off a whole army, it seemed. I don't know how he did it, but he did. Sent his buddy, Edgar, back to the base. To fetch help for this girl." Snoopy shed a tear. "They got the girl to safety, but he was totally spent. He died right there on the battlefield. Now, that's a real hero."  
  
"I'm sure he was," was all Marcie could say.  
  
Snoopy picked up his mug of root beer. "Spot may not have gone the way Farley did. But, he'll always be remembered the same way, as a great friend. A loving, reliable partner who is there no matter what. And, we're all going to miss him."  
  
A/N: If you never read "For Better or For Worse," Lynn Johnston did such a great job with the family's old dog, Farley. I thought, how would Soopy see his passing? And, on Memorial Day, I thought it was the perfect time to put it up. It's not much, but for those who did follow that sequence, if nothing else (and I haven't followed it much at all otherwise, before or since), I hope you like it. 


End file.
